Stress
A few years ago I used to manage an 8 million pound state of the art health club facility for one of the biggest health club chains in the UK. One morning I woke up late having slept through my alarm and started a heated argument with my partner for not waking me up. Unshaven, and with no breakfast I hurried to work in the car only to get caught up in the morning traffic, swearing at the wheel and at the stupid traffic lights that go red when there’s no traffic on the other roads, I start to think of what my boss is going to say as I will be late for a meeting that I am supposed to be chairing. After a firm word from my superior’s and a terrible day at the office, I’m clearly in an irritable state. When I finally decide to leave work for home, I’m again faced with the evening rush hour. I’m now feeling extremely annoyed with the whole day and that everything just seems to be going against me, only then to get home to continue the argument with my partner from the morning. Welcome to 21st century stress.
We have all had ‘one of those days’. You know how they go; wake up late, miss breakfast, the journey to work seems that every set of traffic lights is on red and that’s before you have to chair that all important meeting with the area manager present.
We truly are living in stressful times research even shows we are now 3 times mores stressed than our grandparents. This is a massively misunderstood issue. Some people seem to think stress does not exist and people that suffer from it are just weak minded. And there are a lot of people out there that seem to buckle and their world caves in if you just ask them to pass the salt.
Firstly we can no longer ignore this issues or pay it lip service, stress is very real and it plays a vital role in our every day lives. All creatures great and small will have and need stress. It is a fantastic survival mechanism we have, which at one time stopped us from being eaten by sabre tooth tigers and over sized nasty looking elephants.
Stress triggers a number of chemical reactions around the body that stimulates heart rate, blood flow, respiration and muscular tension to name a few. Basically put, we are placed in an emergency state which is commonly known as Fight or Flight syndrome. This state prepares the body to either fight the danger that is coming our way or to run away from it.
Unfortunately our bodies are not intelligent enough to differentiate a sabre tooth tiger chasing us or being stuck in a ridiculous traffic jam when your already 30 minutes late for an important meeting. However, there is an obvious difference between the two, the threat of the sabre tooth tiger will have disappeared within a few seconds (if you are lucky enough to get away from it), therefore the stress hormones within the body will recede to normal levels and your body will return back to its natural state, end of story. This is not so with the traffic jam, firstly you are late, secondly you are stuck in the traffic for a long time and thirdly you have to then deal with the consequences of being late when you finally arrive at your destination, thus keeping you in a stressful state for a long period of time.
If we stay in a stressful situation for too long then we start enter a catabolic state, which basically means tissue destroying. Our immune systems are suppressed, sleep patterns are altered, appetite decreases and sugar cravings increased. So we enter an unhealthy state if we stay stressed too long.
Most of the time we create stress in our thoughts, we tend to imagine terrible and painful outcomes to situations that haven’t even yet happened. Too many people focus on negative impacts of the situation they are in. Try these points in future when faced with stressful situations:
1. Learn from the situation you are in and how you can avoid this in the future
2. Always remember no matter how deep the hole is you are in, look around you, there are always plenty of ropes to help pull you out
3. Always focus on all the positives of an outcome and learn from the negatives
4. Always try to take time out in your day to relax and switch off from work or a busy home life
5. Try to find time for yourself every day. This is a must! If you do this and look after yourself then you are in a position to look after others.